


Apocalypse: The Version With Gentrification

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Homeowner's Association AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-05 18:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: Aziraphale owns a bookshop in a quaint neighbourhood, and Crowley lives in a post-modern glass monstrosity. Together, they are going to prevent further gentrification.





	Apocalypse: The Version With Gentrification

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infernal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/gifts).

"Angel, we have a problem," Crowley said loudly to announce himself. He stepped into the quiet, dusky bookshop with its high shelves and ancient books that demanded a hushed silence Crowley was unwilling to provide. It was not his scene—he was much more at home in the shiny chrome and glass monstrosity further up the street that had been, before the housing crisis of 2007, someone’s first attempt at gentrification.

He only came here when he was longing for the owner’s attention, which was, well, every other week or so, maybe as much as twice a day even.

As usual, the bookshop appeared to be closed, although Aziraphale had obviously bowed to the greater authority of the Neighbourhood Watch because he’d put two pots with geranium next to the front step to make it look 'a little more welcoming'. He hadn’t updated the windows—or cleaned them for that matter—so the lonely flowers didn’t help matters much: The bookshop still looked abandoned at best. Inside, the first few steps were quite dusty as well to scare away those customers the rest of the facade hadn’t. Crowley had never cared enough to let it stop him whenever he coaxed Aziraphale to one of the nicer nearby restaurants, and he wouldn’t let it stop him now that there was a bona fide emergency happening.

Into the quiet dark, where Aziraphale surely lurked to scare away the most persistent of customers, Crowley said, "It might be possible that Warlock is not the son of my boss after all, and we’ve wasted our time and nothing good will ever be okay again! We’ve concentrated our efforts on the wrong child!"

Said angel, the owner of the bookshop, appeared out of the shelves of the rarities he collected more to have them than to sell them. "Pardon me?"Aziraphale replied, with the tone of a man who had spent months of his life trying to coax a little bit of humanity out of a child that was, well, a victim of its upbringing. Warlock’s moods were trying for an experienced childminder and Aziraphale was anything but. So was Crowley, for that matter, even though they had tried for the sake of the community. "How can that be? Didn’t you deliver him to his parents?"

"Well," Crowley dithered. "It was dark and stormy, and nuns always put me off my stride, especially these nuns… anyone could’ve mistaken the baby! It’s not like it had horns or hooves, you know. Although that would fit. He’s the devil‘s own."

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Aziraphale said with some reproach.

“True, though,” Crowley replied and tipped down his sunglasses. When Aziraphale failed to protest strenuously against the slander, his slight grin turned into a full-on smirk. "And you know it."

"The plan failed, then," Aziraphale said. "There’s nothing we can do."

"Yeah," Crowley answered, and looked upon the bookshop with its dust bunnies and cobwebs and tried not to think about all of this yielding to the superior force of gentrification. "No plan. Although in retrospect, perhaps it is better to not have kidnapped the son of the person responsible for most evils in the neighbourhood. It was a shitty plan, it might’ve failed anyway."

"Kidnapped?" Aziraphale repeated, outraged. "We would not have kidnapped him."

"If you say so." Crowley smirked again. "Well, since our plans fell through, can I tempt you to Chinese takeout from that new place?"

And while thus far, Aziraphale had seemed open to a bit of temptation, now he was done. "I’m very sorry, my dear, but if I miss this next shopkeeper’s association meeting, I can tell my selling license goodbye."

Crowley grumbled a bit but ultimately couldn’t talk him around again. Finally, he grumbled, "The pillocks don’t deserve you lifting a single finger to help them. Weren’t they just going on and on about you needing to double your taxes? It’s not like you’re running a business here."

"I can deal with Gabriel," Aziraphale replied gently, although very uncertain of the truth in that statement. If he believed in it enough, however, it might come true anyway. "And you can find out if your boss left any other hints of where his child could be stashed."

"I’ll set my men to it," Crowley said, and with one last long look, he left Aziraphale to his devices.

The community—specifically the homeowner’s association, that was threatened by Crowley’s boss, Jeff Bezos, and his plans for expanding to their quiet cozy neighbourhood--had always been a pillar to Crowley and Aziraphale. While Crowley’s boss had left him mostly alone to manage both the business and the neighbourhood (and Crowley had the people living in his building trained just the way he liked it), Aziraphale had had more problems with the shopkeeper’s association. They, specifically Gabriel, always wanted him to spruce up his shop to drum up business for his customers, when that was what Aziraphale despised beyond anything. He wanted his books to be safe from grubby hands, and customers only got into the way of that.

A few months ago, tensions had risen to a high point, when Jeff Bezos had decided to move his headquarters and had chosen their neighbourhood as a potential building site. The homeowner’s association was outraged, the shopkeeper’s association was pleased for the increase in traffic, and tempers had begun to clash.

Crowley, owning a flat just a few streets away from Aziraphale’s bookshop and thus in the homeowner’s association but employed by Mr. Bezos, had been trying to find a way to influence the choosing process away from their lovely place. Gentrification had always been a thorn in his eye even though, technically speaking, Crowley was a part of the problem. His flat, a modern monstrosity assembled from glass and metal beams, had been the most expensive condominium of the greater area.

Aziraphale had simply inherited the bookshop and the building housing it from his great-grandfather, and was therefore a part of both the shopkeeper association, as well as a homeowner, and one of the oldest of both. The shopkeepers liked to accuse him of caring more about his lazy retirement seat (and Aziraphale was quite a while away from retirement!) and the homeowners complained about his sidewalk and the way his bookshop looked abandoned, especially Mr. R.P. Tyler who wrote long and angry letters that Aziraphale picked out of his mail and read to Crowley whenever they meet for one of their rendezvous. 

In contrast to Crowley who had that big corporate money to fund his excess (mostly very valuable house plants, treating his friends to fancy dinners, and paying late fees for all his invoices, taxes, and extending his credit card which Aziraphale remained quite oblivious to), Aziraphale had to keep the shopkeeper’s association at arm’s length to obscure his real profit margin (there was none). Therefore, he didn’t really have any men to send off to do his errands. Well, there was one man. Shadwell had lived on the property for many years and moon-lighted as a handyman to the bookshop once in a while, although his proper job involved some kind of historical record keeping. Aziraphale hadn’t questioned him once the rant about witches had come to its conclusion.

Usually, Aziraphale paid him and a few of his friends to do market research and development, but he was just as good for the occasional investigation—and they needed to know what Crowley’s boss’s son wanted for a real estate investment, the reason everyone had been worked up so much in the past few months.

Aziraphale had just explained to Shadwell where exactly he should be looking for, when Gabriel and his cohorts entered the building, and then he didn’t have time to muse about Crowley’s foibles—or anyone’s foibles, for that matter— because he was running from his own building, chased out by flames.

Gabriel wanted to draw out Crowley’s boss into a lawsuit, because he thought only a lawsuit could end him trying to build his investment tower for all time. The real victims, the displaced homeowners, who wouldn’t be able to keep their housing, would continue to suffer whether or not any side won; and really, Aziraphale couldn’t stand by this. There’d be construction noise, and media attention and people would come visit his bookstore.

And now, Gabriel was threatening to set his bookstore on fire. Aziraphale fled into the neighbourhood, searching desperately for Crowley. It looked very much like they could only overcome the upcoming gentrification together. They would prevail over this, too, Aziraphale was sure. Surely, it couldn't be worse than that time when Crowley had tempted other children to steal their principal's prized apples and Aziraphale had lost his laser sword, and they'd overcome the hatred of their entire school. Gabriel and his mob tactics, and Jeff Bezos and his plans for gentrification were nothing against that.


End file.
